We had our last Aikido lesson before the Christmas break yesterday, and my sensei decided to make it "festive" by doing the 12 Days of Christmas "Aikido Style". But as the class had a limited timespan (otherwise we'd be there for 12 days ;)) we only got to 5:

1. Partridge in a pear tree - 1st Form Shihonage
2. Two turtledoves - Two hurtful bruvs (Nikyo on two at a time)
3. Three french hens - Three tenkans (from 3 punches)
4. Four calling birds - Four falling bods (bodies - bit of Kokyunage)
5. Five golden rings - Five folding chins (from a punch, a tilt of their chin by five fingers to a fall :))

Now imagine a 5th Dan performing and singing this (in rather good tune actually), and imagine the fun we had trying to imitate!
Does anyone else know of any more to make the full 12? :D

(I don't know if he made it up on the spot but it made for a very enjoyable lesson)

bleepbeep

12-18-2005 08:07 PM

Re: 12 Days of Christmas (Aikido style)

6 (keikogis) gis (geese) a laying
7 kaitens kiting ;)

JCT53

12-23-2010 11:30 AM

Re: 12 Days of Christmas (Aikido style)

8 kyuu ranks flailing
9 uke's stabbing
10 Senei's sighing

Diana Frese

12-23-2010 11:47 PM

Re: 12 Days of Christmas (Aikido style)

Can't resist the temptation to jump in on this one, but my
version is decades old, full of amazement as a relatively new
aikidoka at the time....

Eleven Lee's a-leaping refers to one of our senpai's, a
compliment is intended

And finally, twelve triple tenkan.... three tenkan turns per
technique,

That's how Aikido looked to me at the time, and I'm
looking forward to getting back to it.

Don't mind my nostalgia.... feel free to come up with
a better last two lines!

JCT53

05-19-2011 11:23 AM

Re: 12 Days of Christmas (Aikido style)

Quote:

Diana Frese wrote:
(Post 270919)

Can't resist the temptation to jump in on this one, but my
version is decades old, full of amazement as a relatively new
aikidoka at the time....

Eleven Lee's a-leaping refers to one of our senpai's, a
compliment is intended

And finally, twelve triple tenkan.... three tenkan turns per
technique,

That's how Aikido looked to me at the time, and I'm
looking forward to getting back to it.

Don't mind my nostalgia.... feel free to come up with
a better last two lines!

Yeah, that is the feeling of a new Aikidoka

Diana Frese

05-22-2011 03:43 PM

Re: 12 Days of Christmas (Aikido style)

Hi Jessica, you and the others did so well, I only gave the last two of mine back in December .

But here are the ones from my first year or so....

..... my uke gave to me.....

A right handed shomen uchi (fit the meter and rhyme)

Two (whatever your favorite Aikido book is) books

Three irimi nage (first two words kind of quadruple rhyme)

Four yonkyo (numbering in Japanese)

Five kinds of tsuki ( from the test for first kyu, five techniques from the same attack, the examiner calls out the attack...)

Six shiho nage (not quite old english alliteration, but close...)

Seven dans a spinning (watching the black belts doing their turns effortlessly kind of like the original seven swans a swimming...)

Eight broom bo ( another alliteration, and me confused about the difference between a jo and a bo back then when I wrote it)

Nine nasty nikyo (we seem to have had the same fascination with nikyo that the original poster had!)

Ten tenchi nage (kind of rhymes, in a way)

And then we come to my original contribution about our senpai and his excellent free style (you probably call it randori?)

and the triple tenkans (three tenkans from a single strike by uke, wondered how they kept turning that many times ....)

yep, from the point of view of a new student it was fascinating enough to write lyrics about....

Thanks for the validation, hope you like these other lines, although I'm still cackling about the ones you guys wrote in December...

Jessica, you did well with 8,9, 10 because you noticed everyone on the mat was making an effort, I can almost visualize it now like a movie....

On re reading I see the original poster's dojo actually performed the complete techniques. Good for them. We never did them completely, if anything, it was just a short hint of each technique, as in the nikyo exercise one does to oneself in the warm up portion of class... or for tsuki, just a hint of a punch while singing...